MRI shows Sun’s plasma motions 100x slower

A new “MRI” of the Sun’s interior plasma motions could upend our understanding of how heat is transported outwards by the star.

To take an MRI of the Sun’s interior plasma motions, researchers from NYU and Princeton examined high-resolution images of the Sun’s surface, shown above, taken by the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) onboard NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. Using a 16-million pixel camera, HMI measures motions on the Sun’s surface caused by convection.